This years theme for the annual Secret Garden Party arts and music festival, which is the UK’s 4 day version of Burning Man started by Fred Fellowes, was superstition. Since it’s a well known superstition that being shat on by a bird brings good luck, Hungry Castle decided to bring lots of good luck to all the attendees with the biggest bird they could think of. When brainstorming for a large bird, there is one particular famous one who often comes to mind- therefore the studio created a large-scale Big Bird to drop loads (of luck) on the Secret Garden Partiers as they slid down a super fun slip-n-slide on a hill!

Once the idea was pitched, illustrator Miguel Avecilla AKA Bandid8 brought their vision for the “Bad Ass Big Bird” to life on paper. Those drawings were then transformed into construction diagrams for sculptor Aden Hynes who created the body and feet out of polystyrene coated with resin. Miguel and the team spray painted the body and feet to make his drawing a reality, then 10ft tall scaffolding bird legs were added and wrapped in foam.

SGP festival-goers were enticed when they saw this in the programme:

Shit happens. Especially bird shit and if it happens on your head they say it brings good luck. This year we’re asking Gardeners to keep an eye out for the Big Bird. Yes that Big Bird – big beak, long legs and a big yellow head, breast and rump. Big Bird’s been taken from the street and trained to shit bright colourful goo on command by Hungry Castle. This creative studio makes public art for planet earth, creating large-scale works that are inspired by internet pop culture. They call it Cool Shit. There’s a psychedelic shit storm coming to Secret Garden folks and you better not miss it. Forecasted for one lucky day between 13:00 and 16:00. You should be so lucky…lucky, lucky lucky.

When the moment was just right, Big Bird dropped a heap of goo made of 2,000 liters of water, 25kg organic guar gum, and 25kg of pink powder paint, for 3 minutes and 28 seconds while Kylie Minogue’s I Should be so Lucky blared through the air. A GoPro camera attached to Big Bird’s bottom recorded all of the fun that followed (see the video below). Let’s just say a lot of people got lucky at Secret Garden Party this year!